I’ll be headed to Oracle OpenWorld for the first time this fall, amidst a forthcoming travel schedule that will help keep United’s share price up in Q3 and Q4. It’s a trip I’m excited to make, especially in light of my enthusiasm for some of Oracle’s recent solution releases, especially in the supplier management area. But one thing I find very curious about Oracle in general is that they seem to come up less in deals than SAP does. Perhaps this is just owing to a broader SAP installed-base within my own network of clients, contacts and colleagues, but it feels to me that SAP shops nearly always tend to evaluate SAP as an option when it comes to a range of Spend Management areas (e-sourcing, SRM, spend analysis, etc.) but Oracle back-end customers do not as frequently shortlist Oracle in procurement and sourcing evaluations — or always give Oracle the chance to show their wares up front, even before a final shortlist is decided. Why is this?
I think a lot of it comes down more to Oracle’s relationships and sales execution capabilities, as a whole, outside of the IT organization. No doubt, Oracle has perhaps hundreds of sales executives and managers with solid relationships within the business in their accounts, but the level of business user penetration feels less consistent to me with Oracle than it does to SAP. They’re also inconsistent at their ability to tell a broader story to prospects about their integrated offerings in procurement. In one recent case that I was privy to, Oracle missed an opportunity that was actually a credible fit for an end-to-end deal by floundering on an integrated demonstration. Knowing the solutions in question, this was a demonstration issue — not a product one. Yet it cost them any potential at the business.

A few other reasons stand out in terms of why Oracle customers do not always put Oracle at the front of their minds when thinking through Spend Management selection…

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Obsessed with how companies manage, spend and save money, Jason writes about procurement, trade and supply chain issues @ Spend Matters. He has significant first hand experience developing and marketing technology and services products, has advised numerous companies on sourcing and related techniques as well as M&A pursuits. In previous lives before tech, he was a management consultant and merchant banking analyst.